Social Commerce Platform Soldsie Raises $4 Million In Funding, Looks To Expand

Social commerce platform Soldsie just raised $4 million in Series A funding led by First Round Capital. Amid an industrywide shortage for skilled engineers and salespeople, staffing is currently the
start-up's main concern.

“Our No. 1 priority right now is to grow headcount to meet the customer demand,” Chris Bennett, Soldsie co-founder and CEO, said on Thursday.
"We're at 16 people right now, but expect to get close to 30 by the close of the year,” according to Bennett.

The e-commerce start-up helps brands process purchases within the comments section of social networks like Facebook.

To date,
Soldsie said it has helped process $25 million in transactions, and reports a 70% conversion rate after people write the word “sold” in the comments section of an item. In addition, 60% of
checkouts are taking place after 30 minutes, meaning people are claiming their item and then waiting a while to complete the purchase. Significantly, 70% of checkouts are taking place on mobile
devices.

Although still an emerging field, social commerce appears to have already taken hold among many female consumers.

In fact, women use social and digital for buying goods
and services at double the of traditional media, according to recent findings
from MSL Group and Randi Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Zuckerberg Media, editor in chief of Dot Complicated and former marketing director at Facebook.